Topic: Cup Anemometer life

[Carl Emerson]

Hi there,

I am hearing that the bearings on cup anemometers often suffer fatigue after about two years.

This causes the accuracy to drop off and eventually the unit fails.

Is this matter a concern ?

Would there be a demand for a low cost alternative ?

I am currently working on an alternative design that monitors both speed and direction with no bearings.

This should result in about 5 times the life with sustained accuracy.

I am trying to gauge the demand and a sweet price point.

My design has attracted the interest of the University of Auckland and they are supporting my efforts to conduct market validation.

Any ideas on market size and growth would also be welcome.

It is so easy to assume potential demand and be blinded by personal enthusiasm I guess.

Thanks for reading and any comments most welcome.

Carl Emerson.

[johnd]

I am hearing that the bearings on cup anemometers often suffer fatigue after about two years.

Not sure it's time-related exactly, more dependent on accumulated wind run. But I'd have said perhaps 5 years in a typical location before significant errors start to creep in. And the better anemometer designs will have an easily replaceable speed nearing, eg Davis 6410 with a new bearing readily available as a spare part.

There are of course many anemometer designs out there ('anemometer' usually including direction as well as speed for more affordable instruments), with ultrasonic units being an obvious modern alternative, if relatively expensive. That said, I'm sure the market will always be there for a better mouse-trap, but it needs to be 100% compatible and price-competitive with whichever existing unit you envisage replacing.

[Carl Emerson]

Johnd

Thanks for the response.

The units on the harbour bridge in Auckland are replaced every two years.

Replacing units on remote sites can be quite costly.

I am aiming at ten years minimum, the setup is slow moving.

We will comply the various output protocols and standards and come to market below average prices.

I am hearing from folks that have purchased low cost home installations that the anemometers have a short life.

It seems that there are plenty of cheaper poor performing units being purchased.

Thanks again for responding.

[johnd]

I suspect that you need to be clear about which sector of the market you're aiming at. An anemometer on a public bridge is likely to be safety-related and probably uses a high-end anemometer. Whereas most members here are hobbyists and buy kit at the much cheaper prosumer end of the market. If you wanted to appeal to the membership here then you probably need to be able to achieve a trade price of $100-120 for a fully compatible unit to say a Davis 6410 or something similar from other makers.

There might be a slight issue about how you would achieve second order speed corrections for wind from different directions for a design of anemometer physically different from the original, but maybe that's manageable.